The first thing that the US should do is to tell Mr. Abe, the LDP and company (the rightists and fascists that rides roughshod over ordinary Japanese) to stop worshipping war criminals at the Yasukuni War Shrine, stop messing with the Peace Constitution, withdraw or abolish the secrecy law, stop politicians from associating with the Yakuza, stop denying barbaric Japanese war history. Pay reparations to the war victims.

The post from Ajay Singh says it all.
Japan policy of steal all, kill all and burn all.

For the US, an ally like Japan comes with a lot of unnecessary historical baggage and diplomatic burden. It seems that the Japanese government and part of Japanese society is still stuck in a scary twilight zone, in which truth and universal human values are suspended or do not exist. The weapon that Japanese rightists are fond of using is demonising the victims of past Japanese aggression, whether they are the comfort-women or sex-slaves or whether they are something else like the hapless Chinese. This insane exercise of moral bankruptcy by the Japanese rightists, more than anything or anybody else harms Japanese national interests. It is a self inflicted wound on the Japanese National Psyche. Germany for the good of the German People have basically discarded the Nazi era and moved on into becoming a respectable, modern and economically powerful country, admired by most people in the world. For this reason, Germany have regained her position as an important stakeholder in the world, in which her contribution to peace and progress is getting stronger and stronger by the day. Doing business with an economically and morally strong country is much better than dealing with a morally bankrupt and decadent country. Japan as an ally of the US is but a leftover of the cold-war era and is not really a useful asset, as the moral grounds for the relationship is very shaky. A relationship that last cannot be based on temporary expediency and lack of moral cohesion. Japanese rightists today are just like the lot back in the 1930's.

Besides Mr Biden, there were other visitors who also braved the heavy smog of Beijing for this week’s scheduled visits with their respective agenda. Chinese President Mr Xi met with
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-- visiting British Prime Minister Cameron on December 2nd,
-- the US Vice President Mr. Biden on December 4th,
-- Ukraine President Mr. Yanukovych on December 5th, and
-- French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Speaker of South Korea Parliament on December 6th.
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And in between, Mr. Xi has managed to visit some poor Chinese rural areas and to send condolences to the passing of Nelson Mandela. Australian Foreign Minister was in Beijing in the same week too, but I don’t think she was meeting Mr Xi.
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The schedule suggests that there are more things on Mr. Xi’s mind than to call off ADIZ China announced last month. Japan’s selfish demand of calling off ADIZ (only China’s, not Japan’s) was not in the card in China nor was that demand even publically requested by Mr. Biden for the US during this visit to Beijing.
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On this visit, Mr. Biden has termed China-US relation as the “most important bilateral relations in the world”. Be that as it may, and the Economist says: “. If his (Mr. Biden) trip has laid the groundwork for the emergency-communication mechanism that he suggested, it will have achieved much.”
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I don’t know what has transpired in the closed-door Xi-Biden meeting in Beijing, but a message about the US national interest in Asia can be deducted based on what’s publically known of the visit, that message IMO is that Japan is clearly dispensable in the US camp, now more so than before.
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Such conclusion makes sense. Japan is supposedly only a tool of the American interest policy implement, and there’s no net benefit to the US to sacrifice or dent US-China relationship for the sake of Japan’s own agenda.

A quick review of Vice President Biden's speeches during his trip to Asia revealed two apparently contradictory views of the "status quo":
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Washington was "deeply concerned" by China's attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea by creating a new air defence zone and said he would raise the matter with China's leaders.
Yet, after arriving in the U.S. embassy in Beijing on Wednesday, Biden said the following in a speech before Chinese students: "Children in America are rewarded -- not punished -- for challenging the status quo," Biden said. "The only way you make something totally new is to break the mold of what was old."
Hopefully he won't reveal yet a third view of the "status quo" later today in Seoul, South Korea....

But I remain open to the idea that China may want a clash - just not for the same reasons you and your "many" believe. What better time to alter the status quo than when the US is contracting its international presence while still trying to resolve its internal political deadlock?

Biden should've reminded Japan that they *lost* the war and reaffirmed to Japan the difference between ally and crony, that the protection from America does not include aiding and abating them in their arrogant disregard for their Asian neighbors. Japan needs to learn how to live as a nation that LOST the war and swallow some humble pies, make peace with their neighbors or go to war on their own. Times have changed but apparently the Japanese government hasn't. They still think it's 1944.

many Asian nations' attitude toward japns rightest government (who bullies the weaker and submits to the stronger) is to give it more ropes, to hang itself.

mr. abe's government is leading japns people to yet another calamitous end, except this time around, there will be no more superpower to fend for the basic existence of japan any more. one might say Japan's number or karma is used up.
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by the way, to this poster 'never get out of the boat', your repeated posted hatred of other nations and cult building are precisely why mr. abe et al have been able to brainwashing so many japns people so thoroughly. people are put in devilish trance to falsely believing there was a future in japns rightist government by blaming present japns troubles to others just like in the 1930's, including china, koreas, and even Japan's savior master the usa who fed and saved japns economy for 70 years through the thick and thin of it all.

japan is now a public embarrassment, liability and public charge to the usa's world strategic policy in the overall picture of it.

The US advised its airlines (without pre-informing Japan of its decision) to follow the rules implemented in China’s ADIZ – A SLAP ON JAPAN’S FACE.
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The US refused to issue a joint statement with Japan calling on China to revoke its ADIZ when Biden was visiting Tokyo – ANOTHER SLAP ON JAPAN’S FACE.
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There was no mention of China’s ADIZ and the Diaoyu islands disputes in the press briefings between Xi and Biden’s meetings in Beijing – A FURTHER SLAP ON JAPAN’S FACE.
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Marvelous!
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As I had said in the past on TE, the US-Japan relationship is basically a master-lackey relationship. A master will never allow his lackeys dictate what he should do. Instead, he will always dictate and instruct what his lackeys should do.
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If the Japanese ruling elite were so naïve in believing that the US would ever take care of the Japanese interests, then perhaps they should deserve to be slapped many more times.

'that our Chinese posters, when they talk about Japan, think they speak for Asia'
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and you think you speak for the world?
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attack the views if you have to, but don't attack posters like you did, especially when you name them as a group of nationality. that's the worst kind of racism you are showing.
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your distorted and deranged views of these years at TE forum (I assume 'bismark888', 'bismark111' etc. are you too) are deplorable and shameful.

if you have to attack a race, at least identify your own nationality, not hiding cowardly behind your anonymous pen name for years.

After decades of accusing the United States of seeking "hegemony" in the Asia-Pacific region, China now seems anxious to exert domination over all of its neighbors, as well as any world power desirous of influence. This is a disturbing trend that will doubtless not end well.

"The Korean P-3C aircraft crossed into Japan’s ADIZ during the operation. Japanese authorities were notified 30 minutes beforehand and Korea got the OK yesterday morning."

If the US rebuked China, then the Japanese and South Koreans would see there is no incentive to cooperate, because the US will do all the work. This is exactly what the US wants. Within a week of setting up their ADIZ, the Chinese did what the US couldn't do in the past couple of years, get the South Koreans and the Japanese to cooperate.

It will be seen as the good cop to Japan/South Korea's bad cop. Meanwhile, the Japanese and South Koreans are buying US fighters, destroyers to contain China.

It was the South Koreans, not the Japanese, who want to extend their ADIZ in response to China's creating their ADIZ.

"The risk that Mr Biden repeatedly highlighted was of unintended conflict following an accidental clash."

What if China wants a clash? Many think China is politically and economically unstable and that the Senkaku ADIZ is an attempt to divert domestic anger to an external "crisis". If so, a hotline is useless.

The goal is to contain China in a container ship together with all the cheap Christmas consumer goodies that we all wanna buy (available at WalMart and Wall Street and other respectable stores near you)
'Tis the Season to be Jolly! Falalala lala lala

I find it amusing that our Chinese posters, when they talk about Japan, think they speak for Asia. Here is an example.

"many Asian nations' attitude toward japns rightest government (who bullies the weaker and submits to the stronger) is to give it more ropes, to hang itself."

If you define many as China, and South Korea (ambivalent after the map drawings by our comrades in Beijing).

What do the Indians, Pakistani, Bangladeshi think?
Their population is greater than China and South Korea's combined. The Chinese have a tendency to map their history on to others, look we feel this way, so you should too. Just because the Indonesian or Vietnamese don't feel that way about Japan, they are sellouts to the Japanese right??

And hyping of Japan's territorial dispute with the Soviet Union/Russia, fail to understand that the one reason why the dispute hasn't been settled was because the Chinese objected to it in the 1970s. Yes, China told the Japanese there wouldn't be a peace treaty with China, if the Japanese signed one with the Soviet Union. That was one of the greatest fears of China in the 1970s. However, the US wasn't too keen on Japan and the Soviet Union signing on either. The Chinese Japanese peace treaty was condemned by the Soviets when it was signed.

China had a peace treaty with Japan by 1978, that was only six years after Nixon's meeting with Mao, and before the US established relations with China. In contrast it was not until the early 1990s did China establish relations with South Korea and Indonesia. In my opinion, the Sino-Japanese peace treaty was drafted in haste, not as many of our Chinese posters like to tell you, because China was poor, and they need Japanese aid, but because of the Soviet Union.

I think Xi Jinping should make an announce on national TV that the 1978 Peace Treaty is no longer valid, and then proceed to put the whole peace treaty through a paper shredder. Our Chinese posters here will scream will orgasmic joy. Xi Jinping will become the new Emperor of China, greater than even Mao himself.

Again your arrogance and smugness is astounding, you don't admit your nationality, yet call for others to do so.

You constantly bring up the Japanese even when the topic has nothing to do with Japan, that is obsessiveness. I don't bring up China when writing about Israel or Thailand.

When you can't respond to an argument you call me a racist. I have no problem with calling most of the Chinese posters on these forums for their constant generalizing about most Asian hate Japanese, you are number one at that.

Once Japanese public opinion shifts rightward as it has now, even getting rid of militarist LDP government is not going change much. They won't listen to the Americans either. The Japanese public are resigned to eventual war with China.